Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) Hits New 12-Month High Following Analyst Upgrade

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) shares reached a new 52-week high on Friday after Capital One Financial upgraded the stock from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating. Capital One Financial now has a $421.00 price target on the stock. Palo Alto Networks traded as high as $368.80 and last traded at $360.97, with a volume of 2523842 shares. The stock had previously closed at $353.99.

Several other analysts have also weighed in on PANW. Guggenheim lowered shares of Palo Alto Networks from a “neutral” rating to a “reduce” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 27th. Cantor Fitzgerald set a $340.00 price target on shares of Palo Alto Networks and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 3rd. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Palo Alto Networks from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 4th. Arete Research raised their price objective on shares of Palo Alto Networks from $185.00 to $433.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 29th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $340.00 target price on shares of Palo Alto Networks in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $327.74.

Insider Transactions at Palo Alto Networks

In other Palo Alto Networks news, Director Aparna Bawa sold 290 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $348.74, for a total value of $101,134.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,244,839.38. The trade was a 4.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Helle Thorning-Schmidt sold 700 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $346.85, for a total transaction of $242,795.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 5,898 shares in the company, valued at $2,045,721.30. The trade was a 10.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 101,239 shares of company stock worth $27,174,360. Corporate insiders own 1.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Palo Alto Networks by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,929,063 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $12,512,533,000 after purchasing an additional 2,659,100 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 30,331,705 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $5,587,100,000 after buying an additional 594,789 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its stake in shares of Palo Alto Networks by 16.0% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 22,476,753 shares of the network technology company’s stock worth $3,603,473,000 after buying an additional 3,101,267 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Palo Alto Networks by 3.5% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,989,257 shares of the network technology company’s stock valued at $2,934,935,000 after buying an additional 540,756 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Palo Alto Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,415,364,000. 79.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Palo Alto Networks Trading Up 2.7%

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $287.03 and its 200-day simple moving average is $211.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 0.86 and a quick ratio of 0.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $296.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 298.11, a PEG ratio of 13.15 and a beta of 0.91.

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, June 2nd. The network technology company reported $0.85 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.79 by $0.06. Palo Alto Networks had a net margin of 7.95% and a return on equity of 10.53%. The company had revenue of $3 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.94 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.37 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 31.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Palo Alto Networks has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.770-3.790 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.960-0.980 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Palo Alto Networks, Inc. will post 2.03 EPS for the current year.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) is a cybersecurity company founded in 2005 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The firm develops a broad suite of security products and services designed to prevent successful cyberattacks and protect enterprise networks, clouds, and endpoints. Built around a platform strategy, its offerings target threat prevention, detection, response and governance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

The company’s product portfolio includes next‑generation firewalls as a core on‑premises capability, alongside cloud‑delivered security services and software for securing public and private clouds.